Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1887-03-18

NEW YORK. March II.

NEW YORK. March II.
Several times during the past two years |
have heard Mr.. Beecher speak in his pulpit
of the probability that death was near him.
and always with IA tremble in his voice which
indicated deep feeling and the pain it would
cost him to see his people no more. He
loved his church, that is certain. Once he
prayed with all the fervor of his soul that his
successor might be wiser, better, stronger and
in every way greater than he.
How the vast audience looked at hint As
with one pair of eyes it devouIed him. In
itself that great congregation was an evil
dence of the aspiration of all mankind Each
was hungry to hear something comforting.
Throughout the sermon a hand here and
there would steal up to n glistening eye and
wipe away the tears which sprang from the
troubled fountains of suffering hearts. In
the last prayer, VIXEN the preacher dwelt
upon the promise that in the life to come we
should be satisfied, his voice had in it the
penetrating ring which strikes the key note
of sorrow, and it touched his hearers as with
sacred fire. 1--WE shall be satisfied we shall
he satisfied" he repeated. "Oh, blessed
promise to us who know not here what it j,
to be satisfied Tears rushed to many eyes
and for an instant the souls of his people were
naked, revealing the struggles and sufferings
wept," said "a woman speaking of it after
ward, and this was supposed to be the best
proof that something excessively affecting
had been said.
And again he alluded to his long, white
hair as Goods white banners waving welcome
to eternity" Often, often he spoke of death
and its possibilities; but never with any fear
or dread. 1t was always the land where the
sun would shine in full splendor upon the
soul
He told once a story of his beloved and ven
cradle brother-in-law. the late Professor
Stowe, while Mr.. Stowe was yet living II
seemed to the professor that his spirit was
leased from its body, and STOOD free, without
pain, and surrounded by light, looking down
On the silent, worn and discarded body in
clad wonder Then, something told him that
his time within that clay tenement had not
vet been served, and he must go back and
wait "a little longer for his emancipation. And
with groan of anguish he obeyed.
Then Mr.. Bcecher spoke with deep emotion
of the change which we in our blindness call
death, and which we will find TO be life
The beauty, the benignty, the sweet and holy
uses of death We're themes upon which he
grew inspired and spoke with the force and
feeling of one who saw with an inner sight
something to which mortal eyes were blind
Death, the ancient mystery, more myster
ious than ever seems to us when it takes from
among us one like Henry Ward Beecher
A life so full and strong and reaching so far
IN its influence cannot go out without arous-
ing i'll every heart anew the old query:
What is death.n
49,
An literature is full of the imagery of
death 1t has oftenest been represented as a
fearful and awful personality, the enemy Of
man, a king of terrorS, fowler spreading his
net-setting his SHARES for men. Sometimes
the Romans described it "A female figure,
in dark robes, with black wings and ravenous
teeth lowering everywhere. None Of these
was the death the great preacher so often re-
ferred to and tenderly painted. His ad-
vancetl spirit saw through the dark traditions
of the past into the clearer light of the dawn
of the new day-the day he has helped to
usher in, and the terrols of death vanished
out of sight
The Greeks sometimes depicted death and
sheep as twin boys, one black and one white.
borne sumbcring in the arms of their mother
night A German writer has more truly said;
"OHly before death, but not III death is death
death Death is so unreal being that he
only is when he i, not. and is not when he is y
Death, the great negation, follows the posi-
tive experience of life. sit is not an entity,
out an event; not a force, but state"
The body is but an engine
Which draws a mighty stream of spiritual power
out OF the worlds own SOul, aud makes it play
While in visible motion.
And now the engine which drew the tire
nnendous strspm of spiritual power repre-
sented in the personality of Henry Ward
Beecher is forever stiiied. Here in visible
form it will move no more; but the soul thai
animated it has not been obhlcrated, for tn,
soul can know no death The man who
taught us a noble theology, with laughter
ana 10Y in it, lives somewhere. He who be
ieved in a spiritual as well physical evo
;i,tion has passed on to take II higher degree
{erhapS, who knows, to some time live agail
in the flesh and to teach again. 1t is said
I'VE wake and find ourselves ON a stair ther,
are other stairs below us which we seem t,
have assembled; there are stairs above us
many one, which go upward and out o
sight"
And so while Beechers body lay a mer
breathing machine he, the real man, paose,
out and onward and upward out of sight, d
some stairway higher than this world la
ever builded. He was not self seekin
man. lie worked not for glory; he sough
not personal advancement lie was "a
evangel of freedom. He helped TO free tn
slaves, and he did more for froo thought tina
any man in the history of our country. II
taught us that the world need not be sad i
order to be good. He had that ready interes
IA little things which bespcalls the experience
Iuind-the mind which has learned not to dies
lse the day of small things. He was easy t
ploase, easy to entertain, quick to laugh, an
also quick to weep. He was emotional, Xix
big boy, and not at all like an old man. II
7yas a lion when there was need for leOnr
strength and dignity; but lac never got Owe
teng child.
The church from whose pulpit he taugl
The world wears no emblem of mourning
He has said very often that when he die
they might put flowers over him, but /
wanted no heatheush use of black a tole
Of sorrow when he had passed from deaf
into eternal life.
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